STM Imaging of Localized Surface Plasmons on Individual Gold Nanoislands

An optically modulated scanning tunneling microscopy technique developed for measurement of single-molecule optical absorption is used here to image the light absorption by individual Au nanoislands and Au nanostructures. The technique is shown to spatially map, with nanometer resolution, localized surface plasmons (LSPs) excited within the nanoislands. Electrodynamic simulations demonstrate the correspondence of the measured images to plasmonic near-field intensity maps. The optical STM imaging technique captures the wavelength, polarization, and geometry dependence of the LSP resonances and their corresponding near-fields. Thus, we introduce a tool for real-space, nanometer-scale visualization of optical energy absorption, transport, and dissipation in complex plasmonic nanostructures.